CROSSCURRENTS
CHINESE
IN
SILK
HISTORY
BY PAULINE SIMMONS
Assistant Curator of Far Eastern Art
In the misty dawn of a spring morning in the
year 1908, Yehonala, Empress of China, stood
by the lake in her beloved garden in the Summer Palace. As she watched the kingfishers hovering and dipping over
the water, their bright
hues catching the first
rays of the sun, she
thought wistfully of the
brilliant silks she could
not that day wear. It
was the third day of the
Third Moon, when sacrifices had to be made to
that other famous empress, Lei Tsu, who,
more than 4,000 years
ago had envisioned and
made possible the fragile loveliness that now
filled the great chests
in Yehonala's palace.
Within the hour, swift
bearers would carry the
aged
empress
to
to an unbelieving West much of the Chinese
traditional history of silk. A fragment on a
bronze found at Anyang, where the ancient capital of the Shangs had stood, verifies literary
references to silk in the
second millennium B.C.,
when it vied with pearls,
jade, tortoise shell, and
cowries as a medium of
exchange. And although
no remains attributable
to the early part of the
first millennium have
been found, the records
about the growing importance of silk cannot
be doubted. The prince
of Ch'in who, in the
fifth century, refused to
accept a ransom paid in
coin, demanding silk instead, is perfectly believable. Within three centuries Han emperors
Lei
were paying
their sol-
Tsu's shrine in the imperial city, Peking,
where, like hundreds of
diers and bribing their
enemies with this fragile
commodity and were
before
her,
rapidly
establishing a
empresses
she would offer up prayprosperous trade with
ers for the continued
the West, where silk had
a in Mongolia. Similar
Gauze
Noin-Ul
of
the
from
apparently, until this
protection
great
gauzes were found tat Lou-lan in Central time, been unknown.
Patroness of Silkworms.
Asia. I century. A.D. P'hiladelphia Museum
It was a portentous day.
Legends in Western
Never again would an
literature about the silk
empress of China perform this rite. When Ye- of the East, which first reached the Roman Emhonala died a few months later, the mighty pire in the second century B.C.,have not been
empire died with her. Thereafter the shrine of so carefully tidied up. Reading them, and the
Lei Tsu was deserted, the Patroness of Silk- scholarly comment on them, one is reminded
worms forgotten.
of Chuang Chou, who dreamed he was a butRecent discoveries have rendered acceptable terfly, but, awaking, "did not know whether he
87
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Drawing of damask from Lou-lan in Central
Asia. I century A.D. New Delhi Museum, India
was Chuang Chou dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang
Chou." At an early date stories arose in the
West to account for these marvelous silken
stuffs. Both Aristotle and Pliny recount the
legend of Pamphile, who was said to have invented silk-weaving on a Greek island, but the
most persistent and confused of the stories had
to do with the purported unraveling of Chinese
silks and reweaving them into the gauzes so
fashionable with Roman women. This fantastic
idea was presumably evolved by later writers
from a misinterpretation of passages in Pliny
on silk culture, and it became widespread. It
even reached China, via Greek merchants, and
was duly recorded by Chinese historians as a
strange custom of the Western barbarians.
These Chinese records appear to have lent an
unwarranted air of authority to the story. Not
88
until the mid-nineteenth century was it even
suggested that the "Roman" gauzes might have
been Chinese imports.
Recent discoveries have greatly strengthened
the theory that the gauzes were imported. Chinese gauzes datable within the period under
discussion have been found, not only in China
but in the West as well. The first tiny scrap,
discovered near Kerch, in the Crimea, in the
nineteenth century, was not identified as Chinese until similar gauzes were found on the
Asiatic mainland years later. Both the Kerch
fragment and those found in Asia are lozengepatterned, the Kerch piece having single lozenges, the others more elaborate triple lozenges.
That these are truly Chinese weaves is easily
demonstrable, such lozenge patterns being already centuries old in Chinese decorative art.
In the absence of any tangible evidence whatever of locally woven Roman gauzes, it is therefore not difficult to believe that the ladies of
the Roman Empire were "dressed and yet
naked" in these lozenge-patterned gauzes from
the East.
Legends of this sort furnished no small part
of the incentive for modern archaeologists who,
early in this century, set out to rediscover the
famous trade route over which the Chinese silks
had reached the Roman Empire. The great imperial highway which the emperor Wu Ti had,
in the second century
B.C., forced westward
through the frightful desert wastes of Kansu
and Chinese Turkestan to Bactria and Sogdiana was the most challenging part of this ancient route. The annals of the Han Dynasty
provided fairly accurate information about this
area, as did the vivid descriptions of Marco
Polo set down many centuries later.
By far the most rewarding of the Han sites
discovered along this ancient highway was Loulan, in Chinese Turkestan. For several centuries an important oasis way station on the
silk route, Lou-lan was abandoned in the third
century A.D., when the Tarim desert reclaimed
this once fertile area. The Lou-lan graves, protected through the centuries by desert sands,
yielded a wealth of artifacts-textiles in silk and
wool, bronzes and wood carvings-as well as
Chinese documents. Some of these documents
were dated in the third century, but many of
the silks and other relics had obviously been
reburied here from much earlier graves. On the
basis of the most careful analysis, they were attributed to the first century A.D. or earlier.
The extraordinary fineness and complexity
of the patterning in these silken fabrics, the
earliest ever found, bore witness to the great
skill and superior equipment of Han weavers.
Here was a galaxy of animal forms, fantastic
and real, surrounded and set off by fine cloud
scrolls or geometric elements, some multicolored and woven in an intricate "warp cloth"
technique, some rendered in monochrome damask weaves. Here, too, were gauzes, exquisite
lozenge-patterned gauzes-fine enough in truth
for any Roman matron.
The logical tendency to regard these priceless fragments as relics of the export trade must
be subordinated to the more likely theory that
they represent the personal belongings of the
occupants of the Lou-lan graves. Some were the
remains of grave wrappings, others were undoubtedly treasure for the use of the deceased
in after life. Silk was at this early date in China
the prerequisite even of soldiers and of petty
officials. The famed historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien
tells of a million pieces of silk distributed as
bounty by Wu Ti on one of his inspection
tours along the watch towers of the Great Wall.
The Lou-lan fragments, therefore, must represent in part the most valuable assets of those
who manned this lonely outpost, assets to ensure their physical well-being in this world and
in the world to come.
Han silks from a very different milieu were
discovered quite by accident. At Noin-Ula, in
Mongolia, a Russian engineer prospecting for
gold came upon a series of well-preserved tombs
of wealthy chieftains of the Hsiung-nu, a fierce
nomadic tribe who, in Han times, perennially
harrassed the northern and western territories
of the Chinese empire. In their efforts to appease these truculent neighbors, the Han rulers
periodically sent rich gifts, and it is clear from
Han records that silk constituted the bulk of
this diplomatic bribery. One can reasonably
conclude, therefore, that the Noin-Ula textiles
are the fragmentary remains either of such
89
Drawing of damask from Palmyra in Syria.
or III century A.D. Musee Guimet, Paris
ii
peace offerings, or of loot from one of the
Hsiung-nu raids in Chinese territory. An inscribed lacquer dated 2 B.C. found in one of the
tombs established an early first century A.D. date
for this site. The silks, however, may be considerably earlier. They closely parallel those found
in Lou-lan graves, even to the lozenge-patterned
gauzes, and provide a unique chapter in silk
history.
The next link in this chain of archaeological
evidence takes us back once more to the famous
silk route. It was to be expected that tangible
evidence of the Chinese export silks would one
day turn up within the confines of the ancient
Roman Empire. And so it has, at Palmyra, in
Syria, one of several fortified outposts along the
western reaches of the Han silk route. Two
tombs of Palmyra officials, built in 83 and 103,
were excavated in the 1930's. As Palmyra was
abandoned in 273, the silks found here are considered to be attributable to the second or third
century A.D. Except for the tiny scrap of gauze
found near Kerch, these Palmyra textiles are
the only remains of Han silk as yet discovered
west of the Asiatic mainland.
Most of the patterns of the Palmyra fragments
are radically different from those of the earlier
Lou-lan and Noin-Ula sites. It was hastily
assumed in some quarters that, like the woolen
and linen textiles found with them, the silks
Plain compound twill with floral roundels and diamonds. This decorative scheme and the twill
weave were imported from Byzantium or the Near East. vII or vIII century. Shosoin collection
had been woven locally, at least one of the patterns being described as Near Eastern, the
others dismissed as possible imitations of Chinese designs. It now seems to be well established
that all the silks are Chinese, the questioned
heart-shaped motives, "pearl" borders, and
roundels enclosing paired rampant animals being directly traceable to bronze and jade patterns of Han China.
With the devastating civil wars that began in
the third century China lost control of the Central Asian regions and the ancient silk route
was abandoned. But the political disruption of
this time, climaxed by the invasion of the Toba
Taters in the late fourth century, contributed
indirectly to a new and brilliant phase of Chinese textile history. The revivifying effect of
foreign blood and ideas, even when forced upon the country by dictators, has several times
in China's history inspired a great upsurge of
political, intellectual, and artistic activity. The
90
rapid spread of Buddhism during the period of
the Toba Tatar (Wei) dictatorship gave an
added impetus of religious fervor to this far
from subjugated race. On the intellectual side,
the elaborate and esoteric doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism, which had first to be translated
from the Sanskrit and then interpreted for a
rapidly increasing clergy, challenged the best
minds of the empire. In art, the impact of this
new faith was more direct and personal. The
gentle teachings of the Buddha warmed the
hearts of the Chinese and rendered insupportable the fearsome animism which had dominated every aspect of their lives. In the great
cave temples created in honor of the Buddhist
faith-virtually the whole artistic output of this
period-the painted Paradise scenes surrounding the stiffly hieratic figures of the gods reflect
a joyousness never before encountered in Chinese art. Like the Ajanta caves in India, which
were the fountainhead of inspiration, these
scenes revel in a lovely naturalism, full of flowers, birds, and serene heavenly beings. Within
a few short years this new grace touched every
phase of Chinese art. And in little more than a
half century after the Wei regime the pent-up
energies of "la Chine joyeuse," as one historian has described T'ang China, made themselves
felt halfway across the world.
In his book Japan-A Short Cultural History,
Sir George Sansom has provided a memorable
word picture of the T'ang Empire:
"Politically China was at this moment perhaps the most powerful, the most advanced,
and the best administered country in the world.
. . . The frontiers of her empire stretched to
the borders of Persia, to the Caspian Sea, to the
Altai mountains. She was in relations with
the peoples of Annam, Cochin China, Tibet, the
Tarim Basin, and India; with the Turks, the
Persians, and the Arabs. Men of many nations
appeared at the court of China, bringing tribute and merchandise and new ideas that influenced her thought and her art....
Along the
streets of Ch'ang-an there passed in those days
Buddhist monks from India, envoys from Kashgar, Samarkand, Persia, Annam, Tonkin, Constantinople, chieftains of nomadic tribes from
Siberian plains, officials and students from KoABOVE: Drawing of printed silk with birds and
floral arabesques. From Tun-huang in Kansu
province. ix century or earlier. New Delhi Mu-
seum. LEFT: Applique
embroidery with flying
birds and water. Originally in the Horyuji,
Japan. vII century. Rogers Fund, 1944
rea, and, in now increasing numbers, from
Japan. It is easy to imagine the effect upon the
eyes and the minds of these last of a capital so
rich in interest and excitement; their despair
at the sight of such profusion, their proud resolve to rival it, if industry and courage and
restless ambition could eke out their country's
material shortcomings."
Out of these wide contacts came many new
influences that are reflected in the arts of the
T'ang dynasty (618-906). The wholesale impor-
tation of T'ang culture by Japan in the seventh
and eighth centuries is of particular moment to
91
Chinese silk history because far more of these
easily perishable forms of T'ang art have been
preserved in Japan than on the mainland. The
most famous collection of early silks in the
world is to be found in the eighth-century Shosoin repository at Nara. Here are preserved
more than sixty thousand fragments of Chinese
silks and a few still intact banners and covers
of various sorts, the fragmentary remains of
the palace and temple furnishings of the Emperor Shomu (reigned 724-748). A much smaller
group of fragments of the sixth, seventh, and
eighth centuries, formerly in the Horyuji, a
seventh-century temple at Nara, is now part of
the imperial household collection in Kyoto. A
few of these, sold at the time of the transfer,
are now in Western collections.
The whole repertory of T'ang techniques and
patterns to be seen in these Japanese collections
are verifiable from silks found in T'ang sites in
Central Asia by twentieth-century archaeologists. In their new essay into naturalistic patterning the Chinese silk designers appear to
have been remarkably successful. Here are the
lotuses of Ajanta, sometimes rendered in graceful arabesques, more often conventionalized in
medallion form. Here too are classic vine arabesques treated freely or disciplined into stylized formations without losing their vitality and
grace. It was from these early experiments with
natural forms that the Chinese developed a skill
with floral patterns which subsequently became
world-famous. Much less permanent were the
borrowings from Sasanian Persia and Byzantium. The roundel schemes with their stiffly
posed animals, birds, and mounted horsemen
were, in the main, too reminiscent of the static
traditions of earlier centuries to be adopted permanently by these newly converted devotees of
naturalism. The T'ang creative genius transformed these foreign motives almost beyond
recognition.
Chinese silk history after the end of T'ang
can be treated only in shadowy outline. Documentary evidence is scanty and inconclusive,
and it is therefore difficult if not impossible to
assign specific dates to many obviously early textiles. But the high esteem in which the Japanese
continued to hold the silks of China during the
post-T'ang centuries, and the care with which
they preserved them, again to some extent provide a valuable mirror of Chinese textile history. Most of the Japanese-owned silks attributable to the Sung Dynasty were specifically designed for use in the tea ceremony, a ceremony
inaugurated by the Ch'an Buddhists in China
and later developed into an almost absurdly
esoteric cult in Japan. The tea-ceremony rules
prescribed a subdued elegance for all the paraphernalia of the rite. The silks, accordingly,
were white or muted monochromes, with miniature patterns of flowers, insects, birds, and ani-
Embroidery mounted as a scroll, showing a
Taoist magician releasing bats from a bottle.
xII or xiII century. Fletcher Fund, 1947
92
mals, in medallions and in free motion, against
a background of waves, clouds, cobwebs, or geometric forms brocaded in gold or inwoven in a
single delicate color. The small-scale pattern of
the famous brocade from Pope Benedict's tomb
shows the influence of the Sung tea masters and
must be considered the work of a late Sung
weaver.
It cannot be assumed that the fine sweeping
floral patterns of T'ang were given up in Sung
times, although little evidence of their popularity has been discovered. The proof of their continuance is to be found rather in the following
period, when the most dazzling naturalistic patterning, bold and free, made its appearance in
the marts of Europe.
The pictorial tapestries and embroideries deABOVE: Tapestry weave (k'o ssu) with "strap
gold" accents. Floral design in the Sung painting tradition. xIII or xiv century. Kennedy
Fund,
1913.
LEFT: "Strap gold"
brocade
with
lotus arabesques. Found in the tomb of Pope
Benedict xi in Perugia (died i304). xIII century. Rogers Fund, I9g9
signed by famous artists of the Sung Dynasty
constitute a unique phase of Chinese silk history. Created for mounting as scrolls or in albums, many of these achieved the status of great
painting and were listed in the manuals of Sung
painters. Not many of those so recorded have
reached the West, but the work of fine artists is
recognizable in a few of the anonymous examples in our museums. Most of these occupy a
somewhat anomalous position in the West.
Though classed with paintings, they are too
often accorded less honor than the work even
of inferior painters.
The dynamic vitality of the early Yuan (12801368) silk patterns that reached the West over
the reopened trade routes of the Mongols confirms the belief that all was not restrained elegance in Chinese silk weaving during the preceding period. These floral patterns are full of
restless vitality, and often full also of roistering
animals, real and fabulous. The impact of this
lively style on the static patterns of Europe was
immediate and revolutionary and can easily be
93
Damask with lotus
shou, or longevity,
and tips. Found in
tomb in Egypt.
or cloud palmettes and
characters in the centers
a xiv century Saracenic
Fletcher Fund, I946
Double twill with birds, animals, and cartouches, xIII century. Anonymous gift,
1946
Plain compound cloth with geometric pattern. xv or xvi century. Fletcher Fund, 1934
94
Plain compound satin with dragons, feng-huang, and tigers treated as arabesques. Irregular
color accents give this silk great distinction. xvii or xviII century. Anonymous gift, 1946
traced in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
silks of Lucca and Venice.
Some of the Yuan silks that have been preserved in the West were woven to order for the
Christian church and were probably acquired
by the Franciscan monks who reached China
during this period. These almost invariably
have a lively Chinese animal or two peering out
amongst the somber symbols of Christianity.
Others destined for the Mohammedan world
have bold, free patterns of palmettes and conventionalized longevity characters strung together on foliate stems or floating cloud fillets.
A number of damasks decorated in this way,
found in Saracenic tombs in Egypt, may have
been part of the gift of seven hundred textiles
recorded in an Arab source as having been des95
patched in the year 1323 by the Mongol emperor to Muhammad Al-Malih en-Nasir, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt.
The age of exploration brought the merchants of Europe to China's door in increasing
numbers between the fifteenth and eighteenth
centuries. The sailing vessels of the Portuguese,
Dutch, Spanish, and English are known to have
been laden with the silks of China, but most of
these appear to have vanished into some mysterious limbo. The pretty chinoiserie patterns
of eighteenth-century France reflect their influence, but as a fleeting, evanescent fad, in no
sense comparable to the Italian borrowings in
earlier centuries. The majority of the Chinese
textiles attributed to this period that are now
in Western collections have come from China
Brocaded satin with lotus and chrysanthemum sprays on a diapered ground. From the tomb of
Prince Kuo Ch'in Wang, seventeenth son of K'ang Hsi, who died in 1738. Fletcher Fund, 1935
within recent years. Though virtually all of
these are undocumented and are difficult to
date accurately, they show an expanding repertory of patterns, superb artistry in the use of
colors, and great technical proficiency. That
they in no way represent the full picture of Chinese silk-weaving during this period is apparent
from the fabulous descriptions of Spanish galleon cargoes which in the sixteenth century
were carried first to Acapulco, in Mexico, and
thence to Spain. Of all this richness brought to
our own shores, some of it undoubtedly left
with the Spanish grandees in Mexico, there is
today scarcely a trace.
In all probability there are more verifiable
96
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century silks in Japan
than the few tea-ceremony textiles attributed to
these centuries which have been publicized, for
the Japanese silk-weaving industry did not become self-sufficient until the seventeenth century. Most of these are undoubtedly in private
collections and are thus not easily available.
And in the long unopened storage vaults of the
Imperial Museum in Peking there may well be
a wealth of documented Ming and Ch'ing silks
of which we presently have no knowledge.
When these can be searched out and studied,
the later chapters of China's silk history can be
set down in much greater detail than is now
possible.